Ain't Misbehavin'
by starfishstar
Summary: It wouldn't be the Auror Christmas party without a mystery to solve, a spot of mischief, and a very well-earned slow dance.
1. Puttin' on the Ritz

**AIN'T MISBEHAVIN'**

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 **Notes:** My main fic from this winter's **rt_morelove** event!

By the nature of their canonical relationship (compressed timeline, inherent tragedy, so much personal struggle and interpersonal angst!) I feel like when I write Remus/Tonks so much of it ends up being intensely emotion-focused. Even when it's positive emotions and fluffy moments, it feels like I'm fighting to give them as much happiness as possible before their inevitable end! So with this one I wanted a different focus, wanted to give them something fun to do, a bit of an adventure – showcase Tonks and Remus doing cool stuff as the interesting characters they are, not just having relationship angst. I don't know whether I've succeeded, but that was the intention. :-)

I've borrowed one small but crucial detail from the great Dorothy L. Sayers. I'd like to hope she wouldn't mind!

Written for the following plethora of prompts:  
 _#11, 'I would always rather be happy than dignified.' —Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre  
#9, The Auror Christmas Party  
#15, [picture of a really snazzy red dress]  
#14, 'My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities...like the ability to behave myself.' ―J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix  
plus a bit of #7, Sirius' Christmas_

Four chapters total, updating daily!

– – – – –

 **Chapter 1: Puttin' on the Ritz**

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Sirius' jaw dropped.

That sight – Sirius' jaw dropping – was quite gratifying, Tonks decided with a grin. She turned a little, where she stood on the lowest step of the stairs that descended from the house's upper storeys, spinning on the spot to show the dress to best advantage, how its stiff folds flared out from her hips and the sleek red contours of the bust and waist shone in the lamplight of the entrance hallway at 12 Grimmauld Place. She'd made her hair long and dark today, and piled it high on her head.

"Er," Sirius said, still staring at her. He tried again, "Er…"

Remus moved like a cat, descending even these creaky old stairs noiselessly, but Tonks felt him arrive near the bottom of the stairs, a warm presence behind her.

His voice, when he spoke, was richly amused. "Might want to put your eyes back in their sockets, Sirius. Because right now it rather looks like you're lusting after your baby cousin, and I have to say, it's not a good look on you."

Tonks smirked at gobsmacked Sirius, standing there in the hall with his mouth still hanging open. "Okay," she said, not yet turning around to look at Remus behind her, "number one: definitely not a baby. Number two… Oh, no wait, hang on. I think the rest of that statement was accurate, actually."

"You look very nice, Tonks," Sirius said, finding his voice at last but still sounding a little strangled.

Remus, behind her, chuckled and came the rest of the way down the stairs, resting one hand very gently against Tonks' back as he moved past. That casual touch sent a spike of warmth through her. Remus, usually so cautious, so wary around people, sometimes touched Tonks and didn't even seem to know he was doing it.

Remus stepped into the light of the hall – and Sirius' mouth dropped open again. "Erm, Moony…" was all he managed.

Surprised, Tonks took the last step down to the hallway floor, so she could turn and look at Remus properly.

He was in dress robes, as she had known he would be. Tonks' dress she'd bought new in Diagon Alley, but Remus' robes, understandably, were borrowed. But these were not just any dress robes. When Sirius had promised to dig something out of the house's capacious and long-unused wardrobes for Remus, Tonks had figured it would be something musty and out of date, passable enough for a Ministry party but nothing great to look at.

 _These_ robes, though, were so out of date as to be in fashion again. Sleek, classic lines hugged Remus' figure, then flared subtly at the knee. The cut of the robes made his shoulders seem broader and his legs very long. The sumptuous material was a very deep midnight blue, and somehow contrived to make Remus' brown eyes sparkle more brightly than usual. And his greying hair looked particularly distinguished, set against that rich shade of blue.

Tonks' own jaw was perilously close to dropping. She would be the first to admit that Remus wasn't what most people would call classically handsome, though she herself secretly (or not so secretly, given the speculative looks Sirius had lately been casting at both her and Remus) found him plenty sexy. But in these robes…he was stunning.

Remus coughed in embarrassed surprise, with the weight of both their eyes on him. "Er, yes, well," he said. "This is what we were able to dig out of the wardrobe here, Tonks. I hope it suits."

"Yeah," Tonks said, feeling a little hoarse. "That'll do _very_ nicely."

"You two are going to be the show-stoppers of this party," Sirius declared fervently, swivelling slowly back and forth on his heels so he could look at them both – Tonks at the foot of the stairs, Remus standing to the other side of the banister.

Tonks felt sudden joy bubbling up inside her chest. She'd been delighted that Remus had agreed to come to the Aurors' Christmas party with her – though the fact that he'd accepted so easily, with not even the slightest existential panic, suggested he _still_ hadn't twigged that she was asking him in a romantic way, not a we're-just-friends-really-truly-we-are way.

Remus coming to the party at all had been more than she'd hoped for. Then Sirius had offered to dress him for the event, and the two of them had got quite adorably eager about the whole thing, laughing a lot as they dug through all the horrid fashions the house's wardrobes had to offer, roping Harry and Hermione and the Weasley kids into the search. Tonks was heartily in favour of anything that made Sirius laugh. Or Remus laugh, for that matter.

And now, as if all that weren't gift enough, she stood with her eyes fixed on a Remus who looked every inch the aristocratic wizard from some romantic, bygone era. (Except conveniently minus the bigotry and arrogance that tended to come with aristocratic wizards from bygone eras.)

She was going to walk into that pretentious Auror Christmas party arm in arm with the handsomest man in the room. And Remus would see, for once, that it was possible for people to look at him with something other than fear.

" _Yes_ ," Tonks said, still riding a wave of giddy happiness. "We are going to be _fabulous_."

Sirius grinned at both of them. "Knock 'em dead, you two. I want to hear all the details afterwards about the mischief you managed to get into."

Tonks shook her head at him. "There won't be any mischief. This is about the one place in Britain tonight that's guaranteed _not_ to have mischief happen."

The Auror party was a reasonably high-profile event, so the Order would have an undercover member posted within the Ministry (Hestia Jones, under an Invisibility Cloak) just to make sure no one with nefarious plans took advantage of the occasion. And of course both Tonks and Kingsley would be at the party, undercover in plain sight. Plus, at least half the party guests were Aurors. Frankly, it would be hard to find somewhere _more_ secure from mischief than the Ministry tonight.

Sirius smirked. "You say that now. But I know how much trouble either of you could get up to alone, and with both of you together…"

Tonks rolled her eyes at him. "We're not going to get into trouble. We're going to eat fussy little finger foods, make polite chit chat, wow everybody with our gorgeousness, and dance a couple of dances. That's it."

"Dances?" Remus asked, sounding faintly alarmed. "Tonks, I believe you may have neglected to mention there would be dancing."

"It's a party, of course there'll be dancing!" Tonks said blithely. Sirius, shifting himself subtly out of Remus' line of sight, gave her a wink. Yeah, Sirius definitely knew what was what, even if Remus didn't.

"And you'll be too late even to be fashionably late if you don't get going," Sirius said, sounding so much like a disapproving mother that Tonks giggled. "Go on," he said. "Get out of the house and go have fun."

Tonks' giggle faded as she looked at Sirius. He got the fun of dressing Remus up, of admiring Tonks' dress, of teasing them, but he didn't actually get to come to the party, which was really the point of it all.

"I don't mind," he said quietly, catching her look. "Really, Tonks. Go have fun, force Moony to have some fun even if it kills him, and tell me all about it afterwards."

"Hey!" Remus protested. "It's not like I don't know how to…"

His objections were drowned out under the sound of Sirius and Tonks' laughter, as Tonks grabbed Remus' wrist and pulled him towards the front door.

. . . . .

Not entirely unpredictable, Tonks thought. They'd made it into the Ministry (they'd entered through the employees' entrance and received the little gilt-edged "guest" badge for Remus, since he was her official guest for a formal event, no mere daily business visitor) and were nearly to the wide wooden double doors of the ballroom on Level 7, from which laughter and music filtered out into the corridor, when Remus' step hitched.

He made it a few more paces, then stopped again. "Tonks – Dora –"

There was no one else in the corridor at the moment; either they really were extremely late arriving, or everyone else was even later than them. Tonks stopped too, and turned to Remus, her eyebrows lifting in a question.

"I'm not sure I…" Remus closed his eyes very briefly, then opened them again. "Is this what you want?"

"Is what what I want?" Tonks asked, though she had a sinking feeling she knew what he was getting at.

"You needn't feel you have to –" Remus rubbed the tips of two fingers against that spot between his eyebrows where his forehead always wrinkled when he was thinking too hard. "I won't be offended if you'd rather not have me come in there with you after all. We're here in the Ministry, the very place that keeps the Werewolf Registry. Aurors are the ones who catch werewolves, when the Beast Division can't handle it. Even if I hadn't been rather publicly outed a couple years ago, there's nowhere else in Britain where people are more likely to know exactly what I am. Surely even attending this party solo can't be as bad as the liability I would be."

Now Tonks' jaw did drop, and properly. "Remus. I didn't ask you to this party because I was desperate and couldn't find a single other person who would come with me or something! Is that what you think? I asked _you_ because I think this party will be a whole lot more fun with you there. If you don't want to come, you definitely, definitely don't have to. …But I'd like it if you would."

Remus looked over at her, like he was seeing her properly for the first time all evening. Tonks caught herself holding her breath. She couldn't begin to guess what he was going to say.

At long last, Remus' face broke into a sudden, wide smile. "Dora," he said, turning to her fully. "I hope you don't mind if I point out how exceedingly unusual you are. I don't pretend to see what I can add to the evening, but if you truly want me to accompany you to the party, it would be my honour."

"I didn't mean to push you into this," Tonks said, abashed. She'd been so enthusiastic about getting Remus out to a fun event (well, fun in her mind, but as it turned out maybe not so much in his) that she hadn't stopped to consider whether he'd only agreed to come as a favour to her. "If you'll be uncomfortable in there, you don't have to go. _We_ don't have to go."

But Remus was still smiling. "Believe me, I've experienced far worse than a few uncomfortable glances at a Christmas party," he said gently. "I'm ready if you are."

Tonks blinked at him, stunned at the realisation that all his hesitance had been for her benefit alone. When it came to himself, he only said, _I've had worse_.

Right. She was going to make sure that tonight Remus had the best Christmas party _ever_.

Tonks grinned and offered him her arm. "Shall we?"

.  
 _(to be continued...)_


	2. In the Mood

**Chapter 2: In the Mood**

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They sailed through the double doors of the ballroom arm in arm, and the response was as gratifying as Sirius had predicted.

Proudfoot was manning the door at the moment, so Tonks handed him her little formal invitation scroll ( _"Nymphadora Tonks and Guest"_ ) and watched with secret glee as he looked down at the invitation, looked up at her – and went bug-eyed.

Tonks knew her colleagues thought of her as an Auror first, and only vaguely registered her as being a young woman while most of them were middle-aged men.

In fact, she worked hard to keep it that way. As a young woman with a notoriously complicated family background (that whole cousin-sent-to-Azkaban-for-killing-twelve-Muggles thing) in the old boys' club of the Auror Office, she'd had to work twice as hard just to be taken as seriously as anyone else. Her colleagues no longer looked at her as something different from them, and Tonks was proud of that fact.

But every once in a very rare while, it was fun to turn people's expectations on their heads.

"Wotcher, Proudfoot," she said, smiling sweetly. Well… _smiling mischievously_ was probably more accurate. "This is my guest." She tilted her head towards Remus at her side.

"How do you do," Proudfoot said automatically, and Tonks saw his eyes take in Remus, too, the elegant sweep of his gorgeous dress robes. Tonks felt that thrill again, on Remus' behalf, for the admiration he was going to garner tonight. "Welcome to the Christmas party."

"It's an honour," Remus replied gravely, and Tonks bit back the urge to snicker. Remus was so good at blending in anywhere, he seemed to have managed to forget he looked like he'd just stepped out of the pages of a romance novel.

"Cloakroom's to your left, drinks table is at the back," Proudfoot offered, in the tones of someone who'd had to repeat the same information to many guests before them. "It's recorded music for another half hour or so, then the orchestra comes back on."

Remus raised his eyebrows at Tonks as they moved away from the doorway and into the room. "Orchestra? What kind of dancing is this going to be, exactly?"

"Oh, nothing you can't handle," Tonks said breezily. She was _dying_ to see Remus on the dance floor, but she was pretty sure the only way to make that happen was to keep playing it down, make the whole thing seem as insignificant as possible.

Beside her, Remus snorted quietly, and Tonks had to admit to herself that it was possible he was onto her ploy.

She was smiling as she glanced around the ballroom. It was quite full already; the Auror Office wasn't all that many people, but between the Aurors' guests and the members of other Ministry departments who tended to turn up at these things, they managed to fill a ballroom fairly well.

At one side of the room was a small balcony, accessed by a graceful open staircase that swept down along one wall, from the balcony to the floor. The band would return to play there, later. Drinks and hors d'oeuvre, as Proudfoot had said, were on long tables lining the back wall.

A buzz of chatter and laughter filled the room, which was merrily lit by an enormous coloured lantern that had been hung up for the occasion above and in front of the balcony. The lantern was bicoloured, as a nod to the season: Of the four glass panes that made up its sides, red glass faced out towards the dance floor and back towards the balcony, while the glass at both sides rendered the light shining through it green. It made for an interesting effect on the dance floor below: The partygoers mingling in the middle of the floor were bathed in warm, reddish light, while the people who stood to the far sides, along the walls, looked almost green.

The recorded music was the usual humdrum tasteless stuff Tonks had come to expect at Ministry events, not really energetic enough to dance to. But she still found herself getting caught up in the giddy spirit of the evening. As much as she tended to moan that the yearly Auror party was stuffy and silly, there was something fun about seeing her colleagues dressed up and cutting loose, one night out of the year.

"Cloakroom first?" Tonks asked Remus. She still had her winter cloak over her arm, as did he. Though they'd Apparated almost directly from Headquarters, it was cold enough that they'd needed winter clothing even for the short distance.

Remus nodded, and followed her towards the small cloakroom recessed into one wall, his hand hovering almost at the small of her back. Tonks felt that spike of pleasure again, that Remus, cautious Remus, didn't seem to mind physical proximity with her.

They squeezed through the press of people chatting outside the cloakroom, got inside and found hooks for both their cloaks. As they squeezed their way back out, a flash of something bright caught Tonks' eye amidst the crowd around the cloakroom door – reflected light off the surface of a gold pocket watch, cradled in the palm of an Auror only a few years older than Tonks.

"That's Albert Buckle," she muttered in Remus' ear, nodding her head towards the young Auror as they passed him. He was one of the few Aurors who were nearly as junior in the department as Tonks was. "He's obsessed with that pocket watch of his. Always showing it off, all these cool special features it has, apparently. He gets a lot of teasing from the guys for being in love with his pocket watch."

Remus laughed. "You do work with the most interesting characters."

"But I'm here tonight with the most _handsome_ character," Tonks answered boldly. "Dance with me?"

Remus cocked his head, listening. "To this?"

Tonks gave her attention to the music, nearly devoid of any beat at all, and grimaced. "Yeah, maybe not. We'll wait for the orchestra to come back in."

"When you say orchestra…" Remus pursued again, but Tonks grabbed him by the elbow.

"Snack table, then," she said. "Let's see who's hanging around there."

She led Remus to the long back wall of the room, to one end of a table piled high with fruits and meats and platters bearing little wedges of cheese arrayed in concentric circles. She scooped up two small plates and handed one to Remus. "Fill it up," she instructed him. Then, mostly because she loved how he overreacted every time she said it, "You're going to need the energy for dancing!"

Remus laughed and shook his head at her blatant fishing for a reaction, but he moved along the table, scooping titbits onto his plate, and Tonks followed with her own.

"Tonks!"

She looked up to see Mirabelle Vivianus from the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, holding a plate in one hand and beaming at Tonks.

"You look stunning, my dear," Mirabelle said, looking Tonks up and down in delight, taking in every detail of her dramatic red dress.

Tonks laughed. "Thanks! So do you."

Tonks liked Mirabelle a lot. She was the one who kicked cases upstairs to the Auror Office if her division found that an incidence of harmful "accidental" magic turned out not to be so accidental after all, so Tonks interacted with her reasonably often. In a way, Mirabelle – poised, elegant, of indeterminate middle age – reminded Tonks of her mum, except that Mirabelle wore her sense of humour on the outside, where Andromeda's was more subtle and hidden.

Mirabelle elbowed Tonks in the side, but somehow managed to make the action look graceful. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your handsome date?"

"Oh! Yeah." Tonks turned around to look for Remus, almost overbalanced, but caught herself against the edge of the table and didn't even drop her plate. "Remus, this is Mirabelle Vivianus, one of my colleagues. Mirabelle, this is my friend Remus."

"Charmed," Mirabelle said, as Remus smiled and returned her greeting.

And Tonks looked at her and saw that she really was charmed, gazing at Remus with frank appreciation. Tonks only hoped the compliment wasn't lost on Remus, who could be so obtuse when it came to people's positive opinions of him. He had such a sharp, incisive mind on almost every topic, but when it came to himself and the impressions he made in the world, Remus had a blind spot a mile wide.

Mirabelle moved on along the table after a little more chitchat, and Tonks was just pondering how to tease Remus about what a hit he was proving with the ladies – how to say it without making him uncomfortable, but still open his eyes to the impressive figure he cut – when an anguished voice behind her cried, "My watch!"

Tonks looked at Remus and Remus looked at Tonks.

 _Buckle?_ Remus mouthed. Tonks nodded. That had definitely been his voice.

She set her plate down on the table and turned to scan the crowd for Buckle. There he was, standing nearby, separated from her by only a few chattering partygoers. He was gazing wildly around and patting the pockets of his robes.

Tonks started towards him. Behind her, she heard Remus set down his own plate and follow.

"Buckle," she said when she reached her panicking colleague. "What's going on?"

He swung around to face her, his brown hair disarrayed and falling in his eyes. "Tonks! Someone's stolen my pocket watch!"

"Are you sure it's stolen? Not just mislaid somewhere?"

His hands clutched convulsively at his pockets again. "Of course I'm sure! I had it out, I was showing it to a bloke from Broom Control, then I put it back in my pocket. With the chain attached and everything. There's no way it could have fallen out. Someone's stolen it!"

Tonks felt Remus arrive at her shoulder, there and ready to help out if she needed him.

"Okay, listen," she said to Buckle. "We'll find your watch, okay? What you need is to calm down, don't cause a scene, just sit tight. Go to the drinks table, get yourself something to drink, and listen to the music. I'll come find you when I've got your watch back, okay?"

She put her hands on his shoulders and looked straight into his eyes, signalling confidence and calm. She waited until she felt Buckle's shoulders drop under her hands, a little of the tension leaving them.

"Yeah," he said on an outward breath. "Yeah, okay. Thank you, Tonks. I trust you to find it."

"Good," she said firmly. "Now go get a drink and distract yourself."

Buckle shuffled away through the crowd, shoulders slumped. Tonks turned to Remus.

He looked sympathetic to Buckle's plight, but gently amused, too. "I see you've taken on the mystery."

"Not much of a mystery," she sighed. "It's not like there's any question who's taken it – the same guys who are always teasing him about his watch. They're probably planning to give it back by the end of the night, but meanwhile he'll be freaking out the whole time, and he definitely isn't going to enjoy the party."

"A prank," Remus realised.

"Yeah, but not a particularly good-natured one."

Remus grimaced. "How are you planning to get the watch back? Confront them?"

" _Could_ do… Or we could find it and give it back to Buckle before they do. Prank the pranksters."

Tonks could feel her eyes dancing at him. Remus grinned in return.

"Right," he said. "Let's find that watch."

.  
 _(to be continued...)_


	3. Ain't Misbehavin'

**Chapter Three: Ain't Misbehavin'**  
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They split the room between them, Tonks and Remus, and started their search.

Tonks headed to the cloakroom first. She knew the men who were most likely to have participated in nabbing Buckle's pocket watch, and she was pretty certain she hadn't seen any of them leave the ballroom. One of them could easily have ducked into the cloakroom, though, and stowed the watch there.

Besides, they would want to keep it somewhere nearby; all three of the men in question were busily getting drunk on the spiced wine from the drinks table; by the end of the night they would be sloshed, and would want to locate the watch and toss it back to a distraught Buckle with a minimum of effort.

Ugh. Teasing could be fun, but only if both sides were agreeable participants in it.

Tonks slipped inside the cloakroom, glad to find no one else in there at the moment. The hubbub of the party was slightly muffled from here, but she noted that the recorded music was still playing. The orchestra hadn't yet come back on. Well, all the more motivation to find the watch fast, in time to drag Remus onto the dance floor when the live music began!

Tonks worked her way through the rows of cloaks, feeling them from the outside for any hard, round shapes that might be a watch, but not reaching directly into the pockets. At least that way she felt a little less like she was invading other partygoers' privacy for the sake of the search.

Nothing in any of the cloaks, though. Tonks looked through the rest of the room, in low, dusty corners and high on shelves, but came up empty-handed. All right, if not in the cloakroom, then where?

She stepped back into the main space of the ballroom and looked around. Remus was on the other side of the room, surreptitiously checking each of the gaudy golden decorative bows that adorned the lamps set at regular intervals along the walls. It was a good idea – where better to hide a gold thing than in plain sight amidst a bunch of gold-coloured decorations?

Remus was doing a good job of it, too, looking utterly unremarkable as he very casually leaned against the wall next to one of the lamps in such a way that he happened to have a clear sightline at the gap between the folds of the bow and the iron bracket that held the glass bowl of the lamp.

Tonks grinned, watching him. She hoped he was having fun. This was a fairly non-traditional party activity she'd roped him into, but Remus looked in his element, with a problem to focus his mind on. And he looked very much the part of the gentleman detective, with those dashing robes swirling around him. Tonks could happily watch Remus investigate wall lamps all night.

Alas, she should probably do her own part in the investigation, rather than just admiring Remus at his work.

Where else should she look – under the drinks table? In the little basket where Proudfoot collected the invitation scrolls as guests brought them in? It all seemed a little too obvious. Of course, one of the men might even be carrying the watch with him, but Tonks somehow thought that wasn't the case. If this was as she suspected, then part of the fun for them was playing hide-and-seek with Buckle, even if Buckle himself wasn't a willing participant.

Well, then she would just have to work the room, poke her nose everywhere and see if she turned up any suspicious signs. It was what she was trained for, after all! She could turn her professionally honed Auror skills to the Strange Disappearance of Buckle's Pocket Watch for one night.

Tonks wove through the crowd, keeping her eyes open and listening to the chatter around her. She slipped up behind all three of the men she suspected in turn, just to see if they happened to be discussing their little prank with anyone, but she didn't hear anything relevant.

One guy was telling his date a clearly exaggerated tale about a horde of Dementors he'd fought off single-handedly. (Tonks knew it was exaggerated, because she'd been there herself.) Another was telling a friend that he really must try the tapenade.

The third man was standing alone, not talking to anyone…and he had a suspicious lump in his left breast pocket.

Tonks contrived to bump into him as she passed by, apologising profusely for her clumsiness and smiling disarmingly. But when her forearm brushed his breast pocket, she could tell the lump there was just his cigarette case. Drat!

She continued on through the crowd, working her way towards the side of the room with the balcony above it, on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. The light of the coloured lantern above lent the faces around her on the dance floor a ghostly green cast…

Wait.

Tonks looked up, then down again. Green light spilled around her in the middle of the dance floor, from the green glass pane at the front of the lantern, while the faces of people standing further to the sides of the dance floor were ruddy in the light cast through the bicoloured lantern's red sides.

That wasn't how the lantern had been before, though, Tonks was sure of it. The red panes had been facing to the front and back, and the green ones to the sides. Someone had turned the lantern in the last half hour, and what reason would anyone have had to touch that lantern now, in the middle of the party, if not…?

Tonks spun around, her eyes searching through the crowd for Remus. There he was – she felt a jolt of recognition and pleasure as she caught sight of him, his rich, deep blue robes standing out among the throng, his face thoughtful and attentive as he searched for their quarry, the missing watch.

She waited until he looked in her direction, and his eyes found hers. Tonks flicked her glance up at the lantern above her head, then down again at the green cast of the light all around her. Remus' gaze followed where she looked, and she saw the moment when he got it, his mouth forming a gratifying 'O' of surprise.

He nodded in understanding, and started towards her. But when Tonks looked away from Remus, she noticed someone else heading her way – one of the musicians, coming to set up again on the balcony that would serve as the band's stage. Tonks needed to get onto the balcony to reach the lantern, and if she didn't do it before the musicians took up their places, she would end up causing a much bigger disturbance dashing up onstage right in front of them. Better to get up there now, grab the watch, and get out of the way again before attention returned to this end of the room.

Her eyes sought out Remus, still making his way towards her, weaving between dancers and talkers and drinkers. Tonks tossed her head in an apologetic way that she hoped conveyed, _Sorry, can't wait around, have to do this now!_ Then she turned and dashed up the staircase that connected the dance floor to the balcony.

When she reached it, Tonks saw chairs set out on the balcony, where the musicians would play. Their instruments stood ready as well – an upright bass, resting on its side; a drum kit; several stands bearing trumpets, trombones and a saxophone. Her quarry, though, was the big coloured lantern that hung from the ceiling in front of the balcony, casting its light down onto the dance floor. Good – the lantern was indeed how it had looked from below, close enough to the balcony railing that Tonks would, she hoped, just barely be able to reach out and touch it.

She supposed she could also try an _Accio_ charm, but if the watch was hidden inside the lantern as she suspected, it might well break one of the glass panes on its way out. And broken glass all over the dance floor of the Christmas party was a mess Tonks would definitely rather avoid.

No, better if she could actually get her hands on the lantern, and get the watch out without requiring spellwork.

Tonks leaned against the balcony railing, squinting at the lantern that hung just a little more than an arm's length in front of her. She stood on the tips of her toes, trying to see over the top of the nearest glass-paned side. Then she crouched down, to see below it.

There! A glint of gold – the watch rested inside the lantern on a little lip of metal, part of the iron framework that supported the four panes of glass. No question about it; someone had hidden it there and accidentally jostled the lamp a quarter turn in the process. Now she just had to fish the watch out again.

Tonks leaned, and leaned further. The lantern remained _just_ beyond her grasp.

She looked around and considered. She couldn't reach the lantern from where she stood behind the railing, but she was quite sure she could do it if she climbed up and sat on the wide newel post where the stairs met the balcony.

Tonks slid her wand out from its discreet holster at her back, just in case she overbalanced and needed to break her fall quickly. With her wand in her right hand, she used her left to hike up the folds of her dress. Not very elegant, but oh well! Tonks had done far worse in the pursuit of justice.

She hitched one hip up, and wriggled her way into a seated position on the newel post.

Now she leaned out, keeping herself carefully balanced on the post, and reached towards the bottom edge of the lantern. Closer – almost – almost – there! Her fingers brushed the bottom of the glass pane. The lantern swung from the impact of her touch, red and green light dancing. Quickly, as it swung back towards her, Tonks reached up underneath and grabbed the pocket watch.

Even as her fingers met the smooth gold surface of the watch and grasped it, Tonks felt herself starting to overbalance. The watch was in her hand, but her perch atop the post was slipping.

Tonks didn't have to think. If she was going down one way or another, she knew which route she preferred to take. She shifted her weight towards the banister that extended down to the dance floor, and _slid_.

It was a perfect, fast, smooth slide. Tonks hadn't had such a glorious ride down a banister since she was a kid at Hogwarts. It was all she could do not to whoop aloud.

Her feet hit the floor with a solid thump, and she just barely managed not to stumble. Not a graceful landing, but she still had her wand in one hand and the pocket watch in the other. Mission completed, if in rather idiosyncratic fashion.

Tonks looked up to find Remus in front of her, his eyes dancing and one hand clapped over his mouth as he tried hard not to laugh. She glanced around – ah, yes, everyone in the vicinity was staring at her. Of course. She had, after all, just slid down the entire length of a banister in a red cocktail dress in front of what suddenly seemed like at least half of the Ministry.

So much for not causing a scene at the Christmas party this year.

Still, for the sake of the merriment on Remus' face, she would gladly have done a whole lot more.

"Here," Tonks said, grinning, and held up her left hand. "I got the watch."

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 _(to be continued...)_


	4. Strangers in the Night

Just in time for Valentine's Day, the short, romantic conclusion to this little story. :-)

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 **Chapter Four: Strangers in the Night**

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After Tonks had taken her leave from the startled onlookers on the dance floor, giving them a cheeky wave and ducking back into the crowd; after the musicians had ascended the same stairs Tonks had just slid down and taken up their positions on the balcony; after she'd returned the gold pocket watch to Buckle and accepted his tearful gratitude – after all those things, Tonks turned to Remus, who was waiting discreetly to the side while Buckle effused his gratitude, and asked him, "Shall we dance?"

The orchestra on the balcony had struck up an upbeat tune, something with a big band sound, and it was already making Tonks want to jump and move. Remus looked at her, considering, then nodded.

"You could swing dance to this, but it's also fine just to kind of bounce up and down," Tonks said, as they found their way to an unclaimed bit of the dance floor. Her Muggle grandparents had loved this music, and her dad had inherited a fondness for it too. He'd sometimes danced Tonks around their small kitchen when she was a little girl, Tonks giggling like mad, her mum waving a dishtowel at both of them, shooing them out of the kitchen before they broke any more dishes than their usual average.

For all Andromeda's protestations, Tonks suspected her parents _still_ sometimes put on the wireless and danced in the kitchen. Though Tonks had never yet managed to get her mum to admit to such a degree of frivolity.

Tonks grinned at Remus, where he was dancing a couple feet away from her. They weren't dancing _together_ , quite, but they were here in the same space, and Remus seemed to be enjoying himself. His moves weren't particularly coordinated, but then, neither were hers.

He smiled back and gave an apologetic shrug. "It's not a dance form at which I excel, I'm afraid."

Tonks shrugged back. "Doesn't matter!" She jumped even more energetically, flailing her arms back and forth to the rhythm, and Remus laughed. Tonks seized the opportunity to press a point from earlier in the evening. "Hey," she said, raising her voice a little so he could hear her over the music. "Have I mentioned you look smashing in those robes?"

Remus snorted. "I think you and Sirius may have mentioned it once or twice."

"Well, you do! Surely you've noticed people looking."

"Oh, Dora, really –"

"Just look around!" She cocked her head to the side, and lowered her voice. "That woman over there, for example, to your left. She's from the Portkey Office – the one in the green dress. She's definitely looking at you. And that bloke there, too, he keeps glancing over." She cut her eyes to the left, to indicate where she meant.

Remus was blushing faintly. "Surely –"

"No arguing," Tonks told him, mock sternly. "Just enjoy it!"

"Well, then," Remus said, still moving side to side in time with the music, "I could say the same to you. Surely you've noticed all the eyes you've caught tonight."

"When?" Tonks demanded. She hadn't noticed anything of the sort.

Remus' lips quirked up. "When you slid down that banister, for one." He raised one hand before Tonks could protest. "And not _just_ because you were sliding down a banister at the time. You're an arresting sight in that dress."

Tonks stared at him. She wasn't sure he'd ever complimented her appearance before. Comments of a personal nature weren't generally Remus' thing, to put it mildly. Tonks wondered if he'd even noticed just now that that was what he had done.

"Thanks," she managed.

Before she could say anything else, the song ended and the orchestra launched into another one, a much slower number that Tonks recognised as a Frank Sinatra song. The same orchestra had played at the previous year's Christmas party, too, and she remembered that the singer did quite a good Sinatra.

A slow dance, though – that was too much to ask of Remus, who hadn't even intentionally come to this party as her date, only as a friend. Cajoling him into jumping around with her to a big band tune was one thing, but a slow dance… Tonks suspected he would be embarrassed to dance to this song, but also embarrassed to be the one to beg off from doing so – the gracious thing would be to save him from that predicament by bowing out first.

Tonks looked up, intending to offer Remus an easy out by asking if he wanted to go get a drink. Instead, she saw he'd stretched out his hand towards her.

His eyes sparkled. "May I have this dance?"

Tonks felt her mouth drop open, and hurriedly closed it. "I – yeah, of course!" She reached out too, and met his hand with her own.

Remus clasped Tonks' hand and pulled her towards him, his other arm coming around her back. Tonks' arm slid effortlessly into place, her hand at Remus' shoulder.

And something – _changed_.

All at once, the way Remus moved was different, his arms around her easy and assured. Before he'd even taken a step, it was clear he was perfectly at home here, on a dance floor with a slow song playing.

Tonks gasped in surprise, and felt Remus' answering chuckle.

"I was raised to believe," he murmured, very close to her ear, "that every man should know how to do a little ballroom dancing."

Tonks closed her eyes briefly, trying to keep her composure despite that voice in her ear. "I'm afraid I'm not nearly as expert at this as you clearly are," she admitted. "The whole clumsiness thing and all that. I may not be able to keep up with you."

"Don't worry," Remus said softly. "I'll lead."

And he did. For the first time, Tonks truly understood what it was to lead and follow in a dance, because Remus was flawless. The pressure of his hand in hers was gentle but firm, keeping them both in position. His warm hand at her back showed her where to go, and her body simply moved with his, without needing her brain to tell her what to do next. And it turned out that when she worked on instinct, Tonks did quite all right.

"See?" Remus whispered. "Not so difficult."

Tonks nodded, letting him feel the movement of her cheek against his chin, not quite trusting herself to speak. And the two of them floated on, she and Remus, swaying back and forth in their little bubble of perfect space on the dance floor.

"Strangers in the night…" the singer crooned from the balcony. "What were the chances…"

Tonks let her head drift down to rest on Remus' shoulder and he didn't startle away, didn't even react except to pull her ever so slightly closer, until their bodies were nearly flush and warmth radiated between them.

 _It's just a dance_ , Tonks reminded herself, because she was dangerously close to being swept away by this. _It's just a dance, it doesn't mean anything._

Then just quickly, an answering thought came: _It doesn't have to mean anything. It just_ is.

Tonks closed her eyes and let the music carry her, let herself feel Remus' arm around her, and followed him wherever this might go.

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 **THE END**

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 **End notes:**

Auror Albert Buckle is also an OC I made up for "Be the Light in My Lantern." Mirabelle Vivianus I made up on the spot. :-)

If you didn't guess already, all the chapter titles are the names of classic swing/jazz/big band tunes! I had fun rediscovering some classics for this story.

•"Puttin' on the Ritz" is by Irving Berlin.  
•"In the Mood" was an up-tempo hit for the Glenn Miller Orchestra.  
•"Ain't Misbehavin'" is a Fats Waller classic.  
•"Strangers in the Night" was popularized by Frank Sinatra. The other songs I chose for their titles, but this one I chose for its lyrics:

 _Strangers in the night, two lonely people_  
 _We were strangers in the night_  
 _Up to the moment when we said our first hello, little did we know_  
 _Love was just a glance away, a warm embracing dance away…_

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Also, this was one of two fics I wrote for this year's Remus/Tonks writing event at the rt-morelove community; if you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy the other one, "Waiting for the Snow," which takes place many years later and features Teddy and Victoire, but is similarly happy and romantic. :-)


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